


You're My Best Friend

by gelandspray



Series: Lay It All Down [18]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Trans, Canon Trans Character, FTM, Gender Dysphoria, M/M, Not Rachel Friendly, Trans, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, Transgender, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 17:56:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3390860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gelandspray/pseuds/gelandspray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unique comes back from Ohio after visiting Sheldon and Kurt knows that she's going to need some comfort and time to debrief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're My Best Friend

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Body Image  
> For [Klaine Bingo](http://www.klainebingo.tumblr.com)
> 
>  **Warning!!** This section references slurs against trans people, describes dysphoria, and transphobia. So, if people want to skip this one, then I totally understand. Hopefully sometime in the next week I'll post something _way_ happier. 
> 
> Also, this isn't Rachel-friendly. 
> 
> Oh! And let me know if it would be weird for me to talk about Thanksgiving, because that's basically where we are in the timeline.

When Unique comes back from visiting Lima, her smiles seem to waiver between strained and truly ecstatic, which sort of breaks Kurt’s heart. He wishes he could have gone with her to welcome Sheldon back to McKinley and show some trans community and support for both Sheldon _and_ Unique. Kurt knows how appreciating and supporting the transitioning success and happiness of another can simultaneously create a pang of sadness. To be perfectly honest, sometimes, he sees pictures of trans men on the Internet and thinks about how happy he is for them, while also feeling anxiety about his appearance bubbling up and boiling under his skin. Sometimes it feels like the success of other trans people selfishly makes the urgency grow that much more inside him and makes him even more dissatisfied with his chubby-cheeked and soft-jawed appearance.

But, anyway, this is about Unique.

Kurt knows Unique well and she is a goddess of a woman who is able to consistently reassure those around her while balancing all of her own shit. But Unique can’t be strong all the time and Kurt knows that and appreciates that Unique trusts him to be there. He had _wanted_ to go with her back to Ohio when Mr. Schue had called them up, but he just couldn’t. Unique always has four-day weekends this semester, so she can afford to visit during the school day – just like pretty much everyone else in their New Directions group, miraculously – but Kurt has classes every weekday and work whenever he doesn’t have class, so he had to stay. He _especially_ had to stay if he wants to beg for time off work to attend Santana and Brittany’s wedding. However, despite all of these totally legitimate conflicts, he really hated to leave Unique to deal with the absolutely hateful people who wrote a trans slur in full daylight on someone’s car in a public parking lot.

Boldness like that and the indifference that facilitates it aren’t the kinds of things that any person can really handle on their own.

Plus, Unique – beautiful and wonderful woman that she is - is barely out of high school and doesn’t really have any professional experience with counseling, but she is supposed to go help support a full-fledged grown-up, who she hasn’t spent all that much time with. It’s just really intimidating. Kurt’s intimidated and he didn’t even have to do anything. In an ideal world, what should happen is that Sheldon could go and speak with his counselor, the one who had to issue the letters so he could get surgery and hormones, but Kurt knows well that, while therapists can be smart and aware enough to know when to approve someone and write the letters, most therapists aren’t actually trans and, therefore, don’t actually know what it’s like. These therapists are just as likely as friends are to make mistakes and say the wrong thing.

“Hey, gorgeous,” Kurt calls out carefully, watching as Unique tries her best to slide the door closed quietly, but they both wince as the door squeaks and bangs in the strained silence.

“Hey, stud,” she replies, setting her bag and purse down by the coatrack.

“Come sit with me,” Kurt invites, reaching for one of her hands and listening to the clack of Unique’s heels on the wood floor. Once within reach, he tugs on her hand and pulls her over just a little faster just to see her laugh at his impatience.

“So demanding,” she scolds.

“Sit down, sit down!” he retaliates until she finally, gracefully ensconces herself on the couch. She looks fantastic as ever and even if she clearly isn’t feeling her best, she radiates resilience and her beautiful spirit always shines through. He just loves her a lot. “I missed you, Unique.”

“I missed you too, honey,” she whispers, taking his other hand too.

And, with that, Kurt takes the plunge, asking, “How’d it go?”

Surprisingly, that makes Unique perk up a little. Her eyes shine and she sits up straight, crossing her legs, and shaking and squeezing Kurt’s hands excitedly.

“Honey, you should see how well he uses make up to accentuate his stubble. It’s a marvel. He’s never looked better. He’s going to look so good with a full beard.”

Kurt laughs and declares with a wink, “Trans people are basically magic with our tools of the trade, aren’t we?”

“Definitely,” Unique agrees.

“How was he otherwise? I mean, I know the vandalism probably hit him hard, but is he doing okay?”

“He was upset, but I’d be worried if he wasn’t, and he was nervous about wanting to feel normal, because Sue was making a really big fuss, which just draws attention to how different things are instead of making him feel like he’s just doing what’s natural. But I think he was feeling better before I left. Hopefully he will hang out with some people in the Ohio trans community.”

“That’s great, Unique,” Kurt affirms. “I have no doubt that it meant a lot that you went. I know from experience that you’re basically professional at comforting.”

Kurt had hoped that she might smile a bit at that, but she stays melancholy, which makes him worry even more.

“His surgery looks great too,” Unique declares quickly but quietly and Kurt doesn’t really know what to say. He watches her face transform into a tight, nervous smile and downcast expression of worry and he’s kind of out of his depth.

Kurt _really_ doesn’t want to get in a competition of who has it better or who has it worse, because it just doesn’t help anyone. While he and Unique were met with the you’re-too-young-to-know argument when they came out, Sheldon had the you’re-too-old-to-just-come-out-now argument. So, it’s not fair for him to say anything and he’s not trying to do that at all. He likes Sheldon. He appreciates Sheldon. He wants Sheldon to have all the happiness in the world because he deserves it. Everyone deserves it, but Sheldon has had hard time and Kurt wants him to have a truly wonderful life.

But…that being said…Kurt can’t help thinking about the things that Sheldon has that Kurt and Unique don’t, just like there are things that Kurt and Unique have that Sheldon doesn’t and so on and so forth. What Sheldon has right now that Kurt knows both he and Unique are _really_ envious of is that Sheldon had surgery and he had the money to do it. Kurt knows that sometimes – mostly since she’s been in New York – Unique feels really low because of the number in her back account. She doesn’t talk about it much or at all really. But Kurt knows that she struggles like he does with decision to buy clothes that make them feel good over saving money for surgery. Surgery is expensive and a long way off and it’s hard to prioritize that over the day-to-day feeling that you look the way you’re supposed to. Kurt feels happy for Sheldon that he could take that step – _honestly_ , he is – but he’s also worried for his best friend, worried that she’s regretting letting herself buy her clothes, worried that she’s feeling too much of the pressure to do everything _now_ that he also feels crushing him when he didn’t even go back to Ohio.

“He said it was like dropping hammers on his chest,” she whispers, raw and honest.

“You know that I’ll take care of you, right? After any and every surgery you want? Whenever you want it? You know I’ll come make you food, give you your pain medication, fluff your pillows and cuddle you, right?”

“Even if Blaine invites you out touring the world with his band?” she jokes half-heartedly.

“Of course!” Kurt insists, “Besides, Blaine knows that you’re basically my main squeeze.”

Unique lets out a laugh – just one – and that shows Kurt that his duty as a friend hasn’t been fulfilled. “Thank you, Kurt.”

“You don’t need to thank me. I love you. I would do almost anything for you,” Kurt insists. “Did anything else happen?”

“Rachel, uh, she called me,” Unique gasps in a sob and Kurt watches in horror as tears begin to trickle down her cheeks, “She called me ‘cross-dressing Mercedes.’”

“She _what_?” Kurt shouts. “She said that _to your face_? _Fucking_ —“

He can’t even think of how to finish that thought. He’s too pissed off.

“No, she didn’t say it to me. I don’t even know why I’m so upset. It’s not like I haven’t heard it before. Kitty just told me that she overheard Rachel talking to Santana about not remembering our names and that she described me as….as that.”

Kurt sighs, exasperatedly, and he releases one of Unique’s hands to pull a tissue from the box and carefully blot at her tears to make sure not to ruin her impeccable make-up. Once he’s taken care of her tears, he sits and gazes fondly at the beauty, grace, honesty and strength that can always be easily read on Unique’s face. He hadn’t been able to go back for the Rachel Berry marathon of ego-stroking jamborees either, but now he doesn’t feel so bad about it. Unique is _his_ _best friend_. Rachel Berry has been one of his close friends, too, but he can’t understand how anyone who has _ever_ met Unique could call her a cross-dresser or act that Unique is anyone but herself and he knows that it must hurt Unique that much more because she’s probably been thinking for the past few days about how well she passes, because he know he has been. He feels the rage filling him and it makes him want to call Rachel on the phone and yell at her and tear her to pieces for ever thinking she could breakdown his friend like that, but he knows that it would likely go in one ear and out the other and that what Unique needs is Kurt present here and now.

“Fuck her.”

“Kurt,” Unique wetly-scoffs.

“No. Really. Fuck what she says. She’s always been one of _those_ people. Those people who are only a great ally like half of the time and the other half she would do things that might have seemed like something a good ally would do but really was the exact opposite. Like, she would mess up my pronouns when I first came out to her even though she’d been using those pronouns for a while and then, when she messed up, she would yell and shout her apologies until I had to tell her it was okay just to get her to _shut up_ , when it really wasn’t okay at all.”

Unique laughs. “Yeah, she’s done that to me too.”

“Such a dick move.”

“It really is!”

“Plus, when I came out to her, she said, ‘Now I can say that I have a trans friend!’ I just rolled my eyes _so hard_.”

“You hit token trans status!” Unique proclaims.

“I’m pretty sure she thought it made her more artsy if she had a trans friend,” Kurt confesses and it’s true. If anyone would think something like that, it would be Rachel. She always has had such a weird relationship with logic. Kurt could almost admire the artistry with which she created her thought processes, but, right now, he’s mostly enraged by her audacity and apparent lack of empathy.

But he’s in the middle of making Unique laugh, so he’s not dwelling too much on his rage.

“Do you know the best part of the trip though?” Unique asks suddenly and Kurt is happy to see her smile growing and no longer wavering.

“Not the Rachel Berry festivals, I’d gather.”

Unique giggles, “No, definitely not. The best part was finding the all-trans show choir and convincing them to perform with me and being around all of those trans performers - all of these people from all walks of life and at all stages of transition and all of these people who are like us while also not like us and all of them came together to show Sheldon love. I talked with a lot of them after the performance and they just shared so much love with me and I shared so much love with them. I wish you could have been there, Kurt. We can never have enough love in our lives.”

“I’m glad you had that, Unique. We should see if there is something like that here. Or start it if there isn’t one.”

“We should. If only we had time,” Unique quips.

“We can find a way to make time.”

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wrote this part for a few reasons: 
> 
> 1.) I found Rachel calling Unique a cross-dresser offensive and stupid on so many levels and I'm _really_ sick of that redundant joke where they make it out to be like Unique is a wannabe Mercedes because they are both curvy, black, sassy women. Can you not.
> 
> 2.) I haven't been watching most of the season, I will admit, because I get weirdly easily depressed by sad media. (I don't even know.) But I watched the episodes with Sheldon at the focus and it seemed to be fundamentally lacking in research about what the medical parts of transitioning are actually like. (For example, you can't get testosterone pills in the US/any testosterone treatment is unlikely to give you that amount of facial hair at any fast rate, so unless they think that Sheldon has been on them for many months and then took a at least a month off of work to have surgery and grow out facial hair, I'm not sure how they think that it works out for him to be coming back with so much facial hair unless it's make-up as I've talked about here.) I'm just irritated that they made that giant leap. It feels like they made a caricature of what it looks like to be trans instead of the reality. "Oh, testosterone causes facial hair growth? Instant beard!"
> 
> 3.) They seemed about as aware of how to treat a transgender friend as they are unaware and don't really seem to put any actual weight into talking about how to be a good friend and ally to a trans person. (Sam's responses when Sheldon comes back made me cringe so much because they were just so-almost-maybe-helpful but then also really, really weren't and they continued with the same type of shaming as always when Sam seemed insulted by the idea that someone could suggest he might be trans, which makes me remember that Sam doesn't really understand being an ally, re:complaining to Blaine, who is biracial and had the shit beat out of him for being gay, that it's hard to be a white, straight man.)
> 
>  
> 
> **People are 100% welcome to disagree with me and tell me about how you disagree. I just feel really weird about all of this**


End file.
